Re: Documentation frustrations
Re: Documentation frustrations
- Subject: Re: Documentation frustrations
- From: Dave Hersey <email@hidden>
- Date: Sat, 09 Jul 2005 02:36:53 -0400
One thing that helps if you know, think you know, or have a good guess at
the method or class that you're trying to get info for, is command-clicking
and option-clicking on the method or class names in your Xcode sources.
That's one of the best ways to jump to the relevant docs. It's one of the
little features of Xcode that I couldn't live without.
The more you're in Cocoa (really the frameworks, since Cocoa is not the
problem), the more your guesses about the method and class names will be
spot on and the above approach will be even more useful. The naming
conventions are really pretty consistent, and while you can always find
exceptions to the rule, that's something that I think Apple/Next have done a
good job with.
A learning curve is just that, and no matter how much Apple documents
things, there will always be frustration when you're getting started in a
new programming environment, let alone one with all of the frameworks of
Cocoa.
Although I don't have any complaints (at the moment), I'm sure the
documentation can be better. Given infinite time and infinite resources, it
can always be better. But, as someone who has neither, and as someone who
knows that Apple has neither, I think that sometimes you have to face those
realities, voice your frustrations (loudly if need be) and then get back on
track, make do and just get the job done with what's available. There are
some good Cocoa books out, great Cocoa sites on the web, and you can follow
this list. With all that and some quality coding time, you can get through
this even with the docs as they are. Most of us who have been around a while
have navigated steeper learning curves when we had a whole lot less to work
with.
If software engineering was always easy, then my mom would be doing it, and
we'd all be in trouble.
- dave
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